“So I checked out your TharpSter.Org the other day to see what you were up to.” Dad advised me of his activities on the web recently.
“Oh yeah?” My mental rolodex went into hyperdrive trying to recall the most recent morsel of verbal brilliance I had dispatched to an otherwise dull internet. Sadly, it couldn’t access the correct bit of RAM to prepare me for the ensuing conversation.
“You sure do reminisce a whole lot.” I didn’t know if that was a compliment or a complaint. Regardless, the irony that I couldn’t remember what I last posted and the fact that I was spinning a lot of yarn wasn’t lost on me at that particular moment. “Even still, I’ve got to wonder how much of that was true.”
“No kidding? Which story are you talking about?”
“Did we really dump you boys alone in the movie theater in the middle of Denver to watch Star Wars?”
“You sure did. We sat through two showings that day.”
“Huh.” Dad pondered the premise of leaving his 9 and 7 year old boys in a theater in a city in which we didn’t live.
“Rest assured, Dad. Everything turned out fine. It’s not like you left me on a stool by your workbench sanding a pine wood derby car.”
Authors note: You may want to go ahead and click that link and read the bit about the pine wood derby cars. It will give you background on the remainder of today’s post. Besides, this is a good time to do it, because the subject changes to something else at this point. The link will open up in another tab, so today’s post will be here when you get back.
Speaking of reminiscing, I found myself doing some of that recently while sitting in the office of an ENT waiting for a guy who specializes in looking deep into holes with a sterilized crocheting hook and a flashlight. As I sat there, I noticed a couple of window cleaners on the outside of the next building over. One was working, and one wasn’t. Naturally, I assumed the relationship between the two day-glow clad gentlemen to be that of “boss” and “not the boss”. I immediately brandished my instamatic picture capturing device, captured the moment in time, and stored it away for publishing later with the intent of livening up the internet a little.
Before holstering the aforementioned instamatic, a collection a magazines posted on the wall caught my attention. Among that collection was an Outdoor Life. Just moments before, Wifey and I had seen in another issue of the same magazine that one of their columnists and probably one of my favorite humorists, Patrick F. McManus had passed away in April.
There was a time that I used to subscribe to that magazine just to read his work. I never had to look for his article, because it was always on the last page and then continued somewhere about fifteen pages back. In addition, I managed to collect just about every book of his which were generally just all of those articles put in one place.
Now that I think of it, one of those books is a hardback version with his autograph in it. Seems like Wifey had pre-ordered it for me. There’s also a cookbook he did with his sister that we still use today after all those years.
Patrick McManus was one of the funniest writers I ever had the privilege to throw some of my disposable income at. If I had a nickel of that disposable income for every time since 1992 that I’ve made some sort of reference to the goings-on in the universe he created…….
The first time I ever encountered Pat McManus, I had just begun working in a call center taking calls from rabid consumers of cable TV shopping. I ran across a book called The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw at the bookstore and opted to read it between calls where I was taking orders for the latest trends in cubic zirconium and plug-in pest repeller units.
I have a very vivid memory of sitting there one night logged in and waiting a few minutes between calls, reading that book. I was a few stories in and the imagery that McManus had created in my mind about some ill-fated fishing trip had induced such a massive gigglefest in yours truly that I had a hard time composing myself when a call came in and it was time for me to place an order for whatever Deal-A-Meal product that Richard Simmons was hocking on our channel.
In the meantime, the lady sitting by me is carrying on her own conversation with me (of which I was no part) about how it’s good to laugh.
In his stories, I was never disappointed.
In his stories I was always laughing.
As I started writing this piece and researching that bit about Dad and the pine wood derby cars, I was epiphonized of the impact the work of Pat McManus has had on me.
Authors note: That’s a word, I just made it up. Another way to say that is that ‘an epiphany was put upon me’. All things being equal, that’s a pretty dumb ass way to report that I had an epiphany.
All this time, I always thought that McManus was merely an inspiration to write humor that didn’t have to rely on vulgarity and colorful metaphors in order to be funny. Granted, that’s not necessarily the avenue I’ve always taken, however more times than not, I’ve kept it clean.
As I re-read that piece about Dad and the pine wood derby cars, I realized that my favorite humorist wasn’t only an inspiration. He was an influence. The more I think about it, there’s a lot of his influence on the very website that has 100% of your attention right now. Even though his book about writing (The Deer on the Bicycle) is as permanent a fixture here in the domain as a quality supply of frozen peanut butter cups and cherry-lime flavored beverage, I can’t really say that I’ve reread that one in the time that TharpSter.Org has been changing the course of the internet with its wit, wisdom, and questionable grammar.
All those years ago when I was reading all of those McManus books, I used to have a fantasy.
Stay with me here, it might get a little weird.
Anyway, the fantasy involved me sitting on an airplane on an aisle seat. I have my personal cassette player (it’s an old fantasy) in my lap and the headphones on my skull. I’m reading a McManus book (Real Ponies Don’t Go Oink), and I am just laughing uncontrollably at it. I can’t compose myself at all, and my fellow pre-9/11 passengers are starting to hit the ‘call’ button to see if they can get the stewardess (they had those back then) to come shut me up with threats of FAA levied fines.
Sitting next to me is some old curmudgeon of a guy who can’t believe the gall of this Gen X punk sitting next to him disrupting his discomfort and the pain and anguish a middle seat will get you. At least that’s my initial perception of the guy. As I finish a story and put the book down to gather myself, I notice the guy sitting next to me looks strikingly like the author pictured on the back of the book.
We make eye contact, and wordlessly acknowledge the significance of the moment.
And that’s it.
No more fantasy talk.
It occurs to me at this point that some of McManus’s best stories were a healthy mixture of reminiscence and artistic license. That being said, I’ll take Dad’s comment as a compliment.
Thank you Pat.
